Mary Barclay

Published Tuesday 8 April 2008 at 12:15 by Patrick Newley

Character actress Mary Barclay was best known to TV viewers for her role as Stella Dane, the overbearing mother-in-law of David Hunter in the long running ITV soap Crossroads.

She also had a successful West End stage career and appeared in films such as Indiscreet with Ingrid Bergman and The Story of Esther Costello with Joan Crawford.

Born Mary Biddulph on July 20, 1916 at Luxborough, near Dunster in Somerset, she emigrated at the age of three with her family to Canada.

When the family returned to Britain in the thirties she studied at Girton College, Cambridge, taking a double first in classics.

In 1939 she studied acting at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, after which she joined ENSA, appearing in a variety of straight plays. She also became a member of Donald Wolfit’s company touring the country with Shakespearean productions.

After the war, she went back to Canada where she starred in several productions and later appeared on Broadway in two Agatha Christie plays, The Hollow and Witness for the Prosecution.

Back in London she co-starred with Peter O’Toole in Peter Ustinov’s Romanoff and Juliet, appeared with Constance Cummings in The Genius and the Goddess, and appeared with Juliet Mills and George Baker in The Glad and Sorry Season. In 1963 she co-starred with Irene Handl in the long running comedy hit Goodnight Mrs Puffin.

After an outstanding performance as Madame Ranyevskaya in The Cherry Orchard she played John Voight’s disapproving mother in the 1970 film The Revolutionary.

Other films included Sex and the Other Woman and A Touch of Class, with Glenda Jackson and George Segal.

After appearing as Mrs Boyle in The Mousetrap (1985) she retired to Guernsey. In 2002 while rehearsing for a production of Arsenic and Old Lace at a local theatre in Guernsey she suffered a stroke. For the past seven years she had been a resident at a nursing home in St Peter Port. She died on February 19, 2008 and is survived by her second husband.